The Context
“I love this company. Most of the people who are now part of the executive team – I selected them. I stood behind most of our services and innovations. You can see now why I find it so hard to actually leave.”
I was sipping a cup of cappuccino with Katka in Prague when she opened up and told me her intentions.
“So, if the company is prosperous and you love it so much, why do you consider leaving,” I asked.
“As we grew older, my mindset and the one of my co-founder started to diverge. It went so far that nowadays we are barely speaking. We both mind our own part of the business and the business is growing; the market helps us a lot. But this is no way to go on forever,” she admitted.
Our cappuccinos were barely finished when we decided to start working together on her company exit plan and on her next career and business step.
The First Step
The first thing we needed to identify were the logistics of her exit so we can design an intelligent strategy and timeline.
A lawyer by trade, Katka took a few weeks to collect the data necessary to inform our timeline. We did discover a few bottlenecks, but nothing was impossible to overcome. After drawing the strategy and the timeline in detail, now was the time for her to move into action and to inform her stakeholders of her departure.
The Second Step
First, Katka informed her co-owner about her intentions. She stated her timeline and the guardrails put in place for the business to remain sustainable after her departure.
Surprisingly, the co-owner didn’t protest or made her life more difficult. They did have to engage in a few tough negotiations to split a few assets, but this is a normal part of any departure.
Then it was time for internal and external communications. Katka shot a thoughtful video that she posted on her private video channel. On the decided day she shared the video with the company employees and she invited them for a townhall where she would take their questions.
Equally, Katka sent a personalized email including the video to all her clients. Afterwards she followed up with 1-1 phone calls to reassure clients that they would remain in good hands. Two weeks later, it seemed everyone and everything was aligned and Katka was almost free to exit.
The Breakthrough
“You know what my greatest fear is? I was very successful in my previous role and I am the key breadwinner in my family. What if by going on my own I will start earning less? What if I fail and I would need to admit this in front of my previous colleagues?” she wondered.
This is when my more than 14 years of entrepreneurial experience came in handy. Beyond the fear I could also recognize the difficulty on starting a company as a sole owner, far from the benefits of an emerging market now established and of a co-owner with whom to bounce back ideas – and to share success and failures alike.
So, what we needed to do was to identify the fastest, most meaningful way for Katka’s new business to shift into thriving. We knew that this would never be possible without a clear market niche.
Therefore, we took our time identifying all groups that Katka and her new smaller team could enjoy serving. We looked at the pros and cons, and we filtered all options through Katka’s values and intentions for how to work in the future. Ultimately we landed on serving young start-ups created by female founders.
“I have so much experience to offer them. Beyond our services I can impart what I learnt when we started our initial business and how we built it into seven figures. I also have great access to the angel investor and venture capital ecosystem, which could be an asset for them. This is something I could enjoy indeed doing for the rest of my life,” she said.
So Katka went all in to serve female founder start-ups. Even though the niche is small, the strong push for more venture capital to go into female-founded companies could not be ignored. With wise cash flow management strategies in place and a back-up plan, Katka was now fully ready to move on the market on her own.
The Resolution
Leaving a company we built after 15+ years can feel dauting to even the most experienced entrepreneurs. However, with the right business strategy in place, which included a crystal clear niche, plenty of service experience and relatability, and a smart cash flow plan, Katka had all she needed to succeed. Finally she felt she had recovered not just her joy – but her company, too.
One of the greatest challenges of women CEOs who consider leaving the corporate world to create their own businesses is that they don’t know where to start on their own. Used to large teams and plentiful resources, life as a fresh company founder can be dauting at best. This is why this is precisely the right moment to bring in a mentor with entrepreneurial experience. It’s never too late to start on your own – and it’s never too early to bring in someone who can truly hold their ground and show you the ropes of entrepreneurship on your own.
